MAKING TRACKS: Lee Shaw

Who needs Marian McPartland when we have Lee Shaw? The Oklahoma-born, Albany, New York-based jazz pianist, who performs frequently at the Castle Street Café in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and elsewhere, is our own first lady of jazz piano—as is made quite clear on her latest recording, Live in Graz, a CD plus DVD package recorded with trio members Rich Syracuse on bass and Jeff “Siege” Siegel on drums. The program consists of Shaw originals interspersed with compositions by Billy Taylor, Victor Young, and Ahmad Jamal, but the music is all Shaw and her trio, which performs like an organic entity. Shaw herself is a living link to jazz history, having studied with Oscar Peterson, worked with Dexter Gordon, Thad Jones, Zoot Simms, and Chico Hamilton, and having taught John Medeski of Medeski, Martin and Wood, and it shows in her lush, authoritative playing, full of color and drama. The DVD includes interviews with Shaw conducted by jazz historian Hal Miller and concert footage from the trio’s residency at the Art Gallery of World of Basses in Reutlingen, Germany, including Shaw’s solo encore of Leonard Bernstein’s “Lonely Town.” [SEPTEMBER 2009]

 

THE GOODS

Lee Shaw Trio
Live in Graz
Artists Recording Collective
www.artistsrecordingcollective.info